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US Banks To Test ATMs Which Accept Your Smartphone Instead Of Cards (ibtimes.co.uk)

Posted by BeauHD on from the gimme-your-smartphone dept.

Dozens of banks in the US are updating their ATMs, or installing new ones, in order to allow customers to withdraw cash without using bank cards. A new cardless system will be rolled out at around 2,000 cash machines across the US, operated by at least 28 banks, including giants like Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chase. Under the new system, people can order cash on an app on their phone, and then scan a code at the ATM to receive their money, all without inserting a card or entering a PIN. The developers of the system insist that smartphone technology makes for faster and more secure transactions. More banks are expected to adopt the technology soon.

8 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds a bit sketchy... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not really technically competent to make a valid argument against this, but my "gut" says... No! Maybe I'm just an ignorant Luddite that longs for my black rotary phone, but my uneducated imagination flows over with ideas and visions of how wrong this could go. My new ATM card has a chip, I'll stick with that for the time being.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Sounds a bit sketchy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm betting it's that the banks see some sort of additional revenue stream from doing this. Maybe they think they'll get higher overdraft fees by making withdraws easier to screw up? Without the phone maybe liability lies with customer not bank, since without a PIN the customer has less of a case to claim it wasn't them who made the withdrawal?

    2. Re:Sounds a bit sketchy... by TapeCutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Many people in poor nations do not have access to banking facilities but they do have a mobile phone. Paying for things via your phone (as opposed to a card) is the normal way of doing business for a large chunk of the world's population.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    3. Re:Sounds a bit sketchy... by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So basically, you give up your wallet and the threat of being mugged for the cash in your wallet for, hmmmm, for log in access to your phone banking account and transfer money or else and what happens after money transferred, how to keep you silent, hmmm, let me think. Yeah, nah, fuck off with the crazy idea of carrying around my bank account with my life being the guarantee of handing over the password and my life being in the balance when it comes to my not complaining about the illegal access to my account. Sure steal my cash, steal my credit card but stealing access to my bank account, that's real risky business. I'm thinking a T-Shirt, "My phone is not, absolutely not, linked to my bank account, please point your gun at the next available auto-teller". Swapping your phone for the ATM where you become an ATM.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    4. Re:Sounds a bit sketchy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And those same poor people have money for a smart phone how exactly?

      There are many millions of "poor" people in Asia and Africa with smart phones who are paying $3 to $5 per month for the same phones and better plans than those offered in the US. The idea that a phone, which can be manufactured for $40, should cost you $80/month for two years, subject to ridiculous throttling/caps/degradation of service, plus enormous fees if you try to switch carriers, is strictly an American concept and frankly I don't understand why you tolerate it. Throughout most of the world there are no contracts, you can buy SIM cards out of vending machines that will work in any phone, and it's all extremely cheap.

  2. Re:Cardless cash by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hate to break it to you, but it's not hard for a mugger to get your fingerprint. All they need is a knife....

  3. This is a game of pass the buck. by kuzb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now it won't be their system which is insecure, it'll be your phone. This gives them another layer of defense against their often laughably bad security.

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    BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
  4. Re:Cardless cash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's why you make sure at least two fingers get you into your phone. Or you could use a toe.

    For the most part, a PIN is more secure than a fingerprint, but this is owing to the current level of accuracy in fingerprint readers. Like a gelatin (eg gummybear) finger can get into a fingerprint reader because it has just enough depth to look like a real finger, but fingerprint sensors could be improved to actually care about opacity and temperature to secure it better. So cutting a finger off wouldn't work, and a gummyfinger would't be stable enough at body temperature.

    Other biometrics are more fun. Facial recog is pretty much garbage since it can be fooled with a photo, and only works for white people. Iris scans are irrefutable (only an identical twin could fool it, and it would rely on refractive properties, so it can't be copied with a simple photo that doesn't refract light) and DNA tests are still way too slow to be useful. The problems with Iris scanning and DNA scans is that they are way too complicated and expensive and are best used for security (eg border control, bank vaults, military complexes and such) and not for poorly secured consumer applications.

    That said, an iris scan may eventually be doable with the "selfie" camera on a camera phone, and if an ATM were to be used to withdraw money, all they would need to do is have the same "selfie" camera at the ATM instead.

    But one needs to ask why bother with all this nonsense in the first place. Quit using cash for everything. So what if Visa/MC/Amex knows what you buy, are you ashamed or embarrassed by what you buy? The amount of people who are scared to buy tampons and condoms are afraid of being judged by the person ringing up the order. If you're really afraid of the person in the store, buy that stuff off Amazon.com